Buckeye Sampler

WirePublished: August 8, 2006 12:00AM

Buckeye Sampler
Eminent domain
ruling step in
right direction
Excerpts of recent editorials of statewide and national interest from Ohio newspapers.
Its a victory for private property rights, of course, and a healthy check on the power of local governments to do whatever they want in the name of some nebulously-defined common good.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled July 26 the Cincinnati suburb of Norwood went too far in appropriating private homes to make way for commercial interests. ...
The Supreme Court ruling is a welcome dash of cold water on the fires of because-we-can development, and a welcome reminder of the responsibility government at all levels has to the consent of the governed. ...
The Sandusky Register
Aug. 3
Mandated health insurance
an unwise, dangerous idea
The AFL-CIOs attempt to begin forcing all employers to provide insurance has officially backfired, a federal judge having overturned a Maryland law aimed specifically at Wal-Mart. Under the so-called Wal-Mart bill, companies with more than 10,000 employees would have to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on employee health insurance or else pay the difference in fines. This was an attempt to drive a wedge that later could result in more widespread requirements for companies to provide insurance. ...
The AFL-CIO seems to have learned nothing from the financial disasters that have struck one old-line industrial company after another as they reached days of reckoning against unsustainable promises of health and retirement benefits.
The Warren Tribune Chronicle
Aug. 2
Kansas vote results hopeful sign in evolution debate
Perhaps Kansas residents got tired of being a major reason that the world asks, Why cant Americans accept modern science? Tuesdays election results likely mean that evolution will be taught in the same way as any other science topic, free of special conditions imposed by religiously motivated opponents.
This election was only a primary, in which five seats were up for grabs on the states Board of Education. Four of them were held by evolution skeptics, who advocated injecting religion-based ideas into the science curriculum of Kansas schools. But Tuesdays vote ensured that two of the hard-core anti-evolution board members wont be on the ballot in November, and that the pro-science side of the board will have a 6-4 majority. ...
Its disheartening that in 2006, when there are so many other pressing problems in education, understanding and acceptance of the theory of evolution has to be the standard around which state board members must be vetted. ...
The Columbus Dispatch
Aug. 7
Generals testimony on Iraq should not be ignored
Its hard to ignore when two top U.S. generals talk about the possibility that Iraq may be descending into civil war.
Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. ...
We find these comments to be disquieting but not surprising. Others have been warning for months about the possibility of a civil war in Iraq, but when it comes from two high-ranking generals, its cause for concern.
We dont advocate an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in light of these comments. ...
But we should also be realistic. If the country collapses into a hopeless bloodbath, our government should have plans to extricate our soldiers from such a situation.
The (Dover-New Philadelphia) Times-Reporter
Aug. 4
What has 25 years of MTV really meant to America?
Its been a quarter century since MTV debuted to shape whats hip, whats def, whats sweet, whats righteous, whats awesome.
Weve been treated to the rise of Madonna, Phil Collins, Duran Duran, Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Robert Palmer, Whitney Houston, Boy George, George Michael, ZZ Top and Night Ranger. ...
So what has MTV done?
It depends.
If you were beyond the MTV generation when it debuted, its created an awful, culture-robbing, people-degrading downward pull on societal norms that has left us with an over-sexed, under-read, thoughtless and careless world with a short attention span.
If you were part of the first generation of MTV viewers, it gave memories of good videos and good music, but its degenerated into something that denigrates the political process, cant be understood by adult minds, and, by the way, your own kids shouldnt watch.
And if youre a kid today, probably you think like those old guys from that group from the 1980s, Dire Straits.
I want my MTV.
The (Steubenville) Herald Star
Aug. 3